


ay, bopem

by banjjakz



Series: into the woods [3]
Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Drabble, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Gender-Neutral Apprentice (The Arcana), Lullabies, M/M, Multi, Mutual Pining, Other, Sickfic, Singing, Spoon-Feeding, muri sings to a sick hen and then he sings to you!, the kazakh muriel agenda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-06-25 23:59:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19756411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/banjjakz/pseuds/banjjakz
Summary: You awake to the soothing rumble of Muriel serenading a hen fallen ill.A fortnight later, you become the hen.(Or: In which you are sick, spoon-fed, and sung to sleep by your gentle mountain almost-boyfriend.)





	ay, bopem

**Author's Note:**

> gender neutral apprentice with no pronouns/name/genitalia identified for all of your reader-insert needs!

You’re awoken from your slumber by the sound of what you first recognize as thunder; it is low and rumbling and the absence of pattering rain against the hut puzzles you for a moment. Then, you realize that it isn’t coming from outside, but  _ inside -  _ specifically, mere feet away.

There, right in front of the fire, is Muriel with his broad back turned towards you as [he quietly croons a song in a language that you do not recognize.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBSXBeOEheE) The usual mass of cloaks and pelts and furs he insists on wearing everywhere lay discarded next to him, atop of which Inanna sits curled into a round, fluffy circle. The sight is so wholesome that you almost call out to him. 

Something in the air stops you from doing so. Closing your eyes, you cautiously spread your magic outwards in an attempt to read Muriel’s aura, and you are dismayed (but, unfortunately, not surprised) to discover that he’s more than a little distressed. It’s easy to slip silently out of the hay-filled cot, bare feet falling softly as you tread over to where he sits in front of the fire pit. When you draw near enough, you’re able to see that he’s cocooning a limp-looking chicken in the cradle of his arms, rocking gently back and forth as he sings to her.

His face lacks its usual array of wrinkles and creases. For once, Muriel is relaxed; eyes closed, lips slack, brow unfurrowed. Oh, how you wish to trace along his features. Your hand twitches idly at your side.  _ No. Bad.  _

Silently, you sit down next to him on the rug. He hasn’t noticed you up until now, and the lullaby he’d been singing sputters and dies in his throat as he shoots you a startled glance, face blooming a brilliant red at being caught serenading the ill hen in his arms. 

Under normal circumstances you wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to tease him, if only to watch that vibrant flush travel all the way down his body; these are not normal circumstances, however. He’s genuinely upset at her condition. It wouldn’t do to antagonize him in such a moment of rare vulnerability. 

“Don’t stop,” is your only acknowledgement of his singing, whispered so quietly one would have thought you’d never said it in the first place.

For a moment, you almost expect him to refuse. You won’t push. You learned a long time ago that to force Muriel to do anything was a greater act of violence than any strike.

Gently, you take two fingers and caress the brown feathers at the back of the hen’s head. She barely stirs, save for a weak cluck. 

Muriel begins to sing once more.

His voice is low and deep and gruff and rocky; the voice of a man who lives alone in the woods; the voice of a man who’s only companion is a fearsome wolf; the voice of a man who only sings to the sick chickens he won’t even admit he raises, instead insisting that they merely “share the same land.”

The language of the lullaby isn’t like anything you’ve ever heard before - you wonder where Muriel must have lived to pick up something so foreign in tongue. It hits you how little you know about the man sitting beside you, and how strong the desire within you burns to rectify that.

It must only be minutes that the both of you sit in front of that fire, but it feels to you as though it is an eternity. Inside these hand-packed walls, on top of this hand-knit quilt, with you draped in hand-made furs, you think that you could exist forever, like this: contentedly swaying to Muriel’s soft, comfortingly low rumble as you stroke through the hen’s downy head.

As he loops through the song one last time, your eyelids begin to flutter and droop as you are overcome with a (not so) sudden onslaught of drowsiness. It is then that you remember you’d been awoken from slumber, and it is still night outside, judging by the hoot of the wild owls that like to flock atop the tree the hut is built underneath.

You’re too tired to register the act of slumping over to rest your head in the middle of his bicep. Muriel jumps, slightly, before relaxing; you can’t see his face, and you don’t want to. You just want to lay against his warm, solid mass and fall asleep to the sound of his song.

The last thing you’re conscious of are the final few dwindling lyrics, more a hum than a croon at this point, and familiarly calloused hands coming up to tighten the pelt around your shoulders.

After that, you succumb to darkness.

  
  
  
  
  


A fortnight later, you fall ill.

Nothing too serious - certainly not at the level of the infamous plague you have absolutely no recollection of - but it still leaves you worse for wear. You are in such bad shape, in fact, that you are not only unable to take any customers, you are also unable to leave your bed. You are forced to take a leave after a couple days of stubbornly refusing to rest; it takes more than a couple of Asra’s gentle yet firm “friendly reminders” for you to finally comply.

Just as you’re rousing from a fever-induced nap, three distinct, sharp raps come against the front door and you can hear Asra open it.

He’s far away, so it’s hard to make out who exactly is there and what exactly is being said, but you catch the words  _ ‘sick’  _ and  _ ‘bed rest,’  _ so you assume it’s a wayward customer that had missed the CLOSED branding on the downstairs window. Ah, well. If things go your way (as they usually are prone to do) you’ll be back on your feet in no time. Just a little bit longer in bed, just a bit more rest, and you’ll be…

You’ll be…

You’ll…

…

…

…

_ “Ack!” _

You are startled awake by the sound of footfall too heavy to belong to Asra. 

Muriel stands at the foot of your bed, eyes wide, hands clutching a ceramic bowl with a spoon laid atop the rim. “Uhm.”

“Muriel?” You ask blearily, groaning as you push yourself into a sitting position. “What are you doing here?”

“Well. You…” he flushes, averting his gaze. “I didn’t see you for a couple days...came by earlier ‘nd Asra said you’d fallen ill, so I…” He thrusts the bowl forward, and you can now make out steam rising from its contents. 

A grin spreads across your face before you can tame it into submission. “Oh, were you worried about me, Muriel?”

He glowers just like you knew he would; interestingly enough, he also turns a bright pink and thrusts the bowl forward. “Here. It’s going to get cold.”

You take it and revel in the pleasant sensation of heat on your frigid fingers. It’s a stew of some sort, from what you can tell; a blend of wild herbs and vegetables (no meat, Muriel is a stout vegetarian) that looks too good not to scarf down. It hits you, then, how hungry you are. You haven’t been eating much, too preoccupied on catching up on the sleep you didn’t get before illness had befallen you. 

As you spoon some stew and are about to slurp it down with all the gusto you can manage, you are suddenly racked with a horrible,  _ terrible  _ coughing fit. It jostles the spoon out of your hand, spilling broth and vegetables down the front of your shirt, and Muriel is by your side in an instant. 

“Hey! Take it easy,” he chides as he takes the bowl and spoon away from you. “Are you okay?”

You wave him away. “‘M fine. Just peachy.” That fit took a lot of energy that you didn’t have. You fall back against the wall, sputtering weakly.

“You still need to eat.”

To your horror, you  _ whine  _ at him. Gods above, you really must be out of it, huh?

“Please,” he sighs quietly, “make this easy for the both of us.”

On a normal day, you’d be humbled enough by that to snap out of whatever it was that was making you so belligerent. 

Today is not a normal day. Today your throat hurts as though it’s been burned, your body feels like it is simultaneously melting off the bone and freezing into a sweating hunk of ice, and you are  _ tired -  _ too tired to worry about making a fool of yourself in front of Muriel. That ship has long since sailed.

You watch him with exhausted eyes as he pulls up a chair and gently gathers some stew in the spoon, blowing slightly as he brings it to your trembling lips.

Neither of you say anything for a long moment. When you gaze back at him, he wears an expression so concerned, so genuinely haggard with worry for your well-being that you have no choice but to open your mouth and accept the food. You must swallow gingerly due to your sore throat, but it’s - it’s good. It’s  _ really  _ good. For a man who lives in the middle of the woods, he sure knows how to cook up a mean meal.

Minutes pass like that, with the only sounds in the room being the melodic scrape of the spoon against the bowl and your soft chewing and swallowing. It should be awkward - maybe even a little uncomfortable - but it isn’t. It’s quiet. It’s serene.

It’s intimate.

Definitely not something you would have ever gotten your hopes up to experience with him, let alone be the object of.

The scene nearly turns into a dream when familiar lyrics begin to tumble forth from his chapped lips, just as rumbling and deep as you’d remembered from that sleep addled night of nursing the hen back to health. You shudder at the sound of the lilting lullaby, and he mistakes this for you not being warm enough; the song does not falter as he tightens the blanket around your shoulders, patting your shoulder once, twice, before remembering himself and returning to the task at hand.

You want to ask him what the name of the song is. You want to ask him to never stop singing. You want to ask him to sneak into your room every night to spoon-feed you delicious homemade stew and tuck you into your blanket and serenade you with songs from far off lands.

Instead, you settle for grabbing his hand before it can retreat after slipping the last bit of stew into your wanting mouth, and croaking, “Thank you, Muriel.”

Muriel is adorably flustered by the lethal combination of skin-to-skin touch and direct eye contact.”For what.”

“For taking care of me.”

He snorts derisively, tossing the spoon into the bowl with a sharp  _ clink!  _ as he sets it on the floor next to your bed. “Don’t thank me for that.” As broodish as he tries so valiantly to appear, the hot glow at the tips of his ears in unmistakable. 

You smile softly, taking his hand back into your own and staring insistently at his bowed head. “But I am. You are so good, so kind to me, Muriel, and I’ll never forget that.”

For a second, you think you’ve upset him. He refuses to look up at you.

And then he mutters something so quietly that you must ask him to repeat himself.

“...You’re welcome,” he says to his feet.

“Come here,” you whisper, reverently.

The darkness of the night is what gives him the shield (and the confidence) to crawl onto the bed, at first contorting himself so that he takes up as little space as possible. You have to hushedly assure him that it’s alright, that you’re fine with it if he is - and then, with all the surprising vigor of a touch-starved child, he clings to you underneath the moonlight.

Your first thought is that he is so impossibly  _ warm.  _ Oh, Gods above, you could get used to this. It’s almost fate, how perfectly he fits against your front. He slides down the bed so that his head is underneath your chin, at the perfect level to run your fingers through his hair and massage his scalp and feel him practically melt in your hands. 

“Oh, sweet boy,” you sigh into the crown of his head, feeling him shudder under in your arms. “Thoughtful, selfless, brave boy. Thank you for coming. The stew was delicious, by the way.”

He grumbles incoherently into the jut of your collarbones. 

You let him be embarrassed, choosing not to tease and instead to bask in the intimacy of the moment. You know that, come morning, he will be flushed from head to toe and forbid you from ever mentioning the previous night to anyone else; you know that you will comply, if only to spare him the awful blush. 

But for now?

You snuggle in tighter against Muriel and take a deep lungful of his natural, woodsy musk.

The last thing your sick-addled mind can register are the beginning notes of a tune becoming increasingly familiar to you the longer that you spend late nights in Muriel’s company.

**Author's Note:**

> hi! thank you for reading! still kinda new at writing for this fandom so if anything is wrong, let me know! ^^  
> [here are the lyrics to muriel's lullaby](https://www.mamalisa.com/?t=es&p=3978)  
> my tumblr is [@myrrheart](https://myrrheart.tumblr.com) and i take headcanon requests and prompts!


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